Students allowance increases month end

Nnasaretha Kgamanyane | Thursday July 5, 2018 17:03

 

“There are plans to adjust students’ off-campus allowance. I am, nonetheless, unable to state at this point in time the extent of the adjustment as we are still finalising this matter. I will make an announcement before the end of this month (July),” he said. 

 Ngaka also explained that the allowance was presently not attracting any inflationary adjustments purely because it was a budgetary matter.

He added they had limited budget against the ever-increasing numbers of students needing sponsorship saying that funds permitting, they will consider ways of linking the frequency of adjustment, as well as the magnitude of the adjustments to inflationary trends. 

He was responding the MP for Gaborone North Haskins Nkaigwa, who asked if the ministry had plans to upgrade tertiary students off-campus allowance to P1 900, which was their previous allowance before the financial recession.

He also asked why the allowance was not attracting inflationary adjustments and how students were expected to live with a stagnant allowance for the past eight years.

Early last year, some parliamentarians called upon the government through the Ministry of Tertiary Education, Research, Science and Technology to increase allowances for out of campus tertiary students.

This was after the students tried in numerous occasions to pursue the then ministers to increase their living allowance but their plea run futile.